(Part 2) Best historical germany biographies according to redditors
We found 350 Reddit comments discussing the best historical germany biographies. We ranked the 105 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.
Edit = I've listed some of the best books I've read on the subject below. Just ask if you want to know anything about them:
[The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans] (http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Third-Reich-Richard-Evans/dp/0143034693/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1457904650&sr=8-3&keywords=third+reich+at+war)
[The Third Reich in Power by Richard J. Evans] (http://www.amazon.com/Third-Reich-Power-Richard-Evans/dp/0143037900/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1457904650&sr=8-2&keywords=third+reich+at+war)
[The Third Reich at War by Richard J. Evans] (http://www.amazon.com/Third-Reich-at-War/dp/0143116711/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457904650&sr=8-1&keywords=third+reich+at+war)
[Maus by Art Speigelman] (http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Maus-25th-Anniversary/dp/0679406417/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1457904780&sr=8-2&keywords=maus)
[Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics by Frederich Spotts] (http://www.amazon.com/Hitler-Power-Aesthetics-Frederic-Spotts/dp/1585673455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457904821&sr=8-1&keywords=hitler+power+of+aesthetics)
[Art of the Third Reich by Peter Adam] (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Third-Reich-Peter-Adam/dp/0810919125/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=21WGRYFWN5L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR115%2C160_&refRID=1VRZ6QYR6PG5XXXMYTPN)
[Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe by Mark Mazower] (http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Empire-Nazis-Ruled-Europe/dp/014311610X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457904865&sr=8-1&keywords=hitler%27s+empire)
[State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda by Susan Bachrach and Steven Luckert] (http://www.amazon.com/State-Deception-Power-Nazi-Propaganda/dp/0896047148/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457904916&sr=8-1&keywords=state+of+deception+nazi)
[Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris by Ian Kershaw] (http://www.amazon.com/Hitler-1889-1936-Hubris-Ian-Kershaw/dp/0393320359/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1457904967&sr=8-2&keywords=hitler+kershaw)
[Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis by Ian Kershaw] (http://www.amazon.com/Hitler-1936-1945-Nemesis-Ian-Kershaw/dp/0393322521/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=01WJ9WDS06KZ1AX79B3M)
[The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Jay Lifton] (http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Doctors-Medical-Psychology-Genocide/dp/0465049052/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457905061&sr=1-1&keywords=the+nazi+doctors)
[The Destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg] (http://www.amazon.com/Raul-Hilberg-Destruction-European-third/dp/B008UYLG6K/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457905115&sr=1-4&keywords=destruction+of+the+european+jews)
[Heinrich Himmler by Peter Longerich] (http://www.amazon.com/Heinrich-Himmler-Peter-Longerich/dp/0199651744/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457905176&sr=1-1&keywords=heinrich+himmler)
[Hitler's Hangman - The Life of Heydrich by Robert Gerwartch] (http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Hangman-The-Life-Heydrich/dp/0300187726/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51FT1ecdFQL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR104%2C160_&refRID=084WSKT05G4GB1FGE1SY)
[Nazi Germany and the Jews: Volume 1: The Years of Persecution 1933-1939 by Saul Friedlander] (http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Germany-Jews-Persecution-1933-1939/dp/0060928786/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457905269&sr=1-3&keywords=nazi+germany+and+the+jews+saul)
[Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945: The Years of Extermination by Saul Friedlander] (http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Germany-Jews-1939-1945-Extermination/dp/0060930489/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0DQYMK2GMYNVJK794F03)
[Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning] (http://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution/dp/0060995068)
[KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann] (http://www.amazon.com/KL-History-Nazi-Concentration-Camps/dp/0374118256/ref=pd_sim_14_6?ie=UTF8&dpID=41yRIhssGkL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR106%2C160_&refRID=0BSM1HJ13NDQ46VKENQK)
I applaud the publishing of this book and it sounds very interesting, but the title of the article (and by extension this post, though that's not the fault of the OP) is a bit misleading. I would say that at this point the consensus of historians on the subject is at best that the German populace was willfully ignorant of the atrocities committed against the Jews. If you read firsthand accounts of Germans living during the Holocaust and look at the simple logistics of the situation, it would have been impossible for them NOT to have any idea of what was happening to the Jews and others.
There was a significant amount of anti-semitism amongst the Germans during that time period. Look at accounts such as Frauen (http://www.amazon.com/Frauen-German-Women-Recall-Third/dp/0813522005/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318681094&sr=8-1). Maybe it was not their primary reason for supporting the Nazi party, but a lot of Germans (I would dare say even a majority) were onboard with the Nazis' anti-Semitic agenda. Europe, and especially Germany, has a long and ignominious history of anti-Jewish sentiment and action.
Furthermore, the oppression of the Jews was ubiquitous and blatant. There were concentration camps all over Germany, and they were not subtle affairs. Additionally consider the large numbers of Jews and POWs being used as forced labor in German industry, oftentimes alongside Germans. Not to mention that the recovery of the German economy was not due to some economic genius possessed by Hitler or his advisors but founded on extracting the wealth of the Jewish population. Though that's really tangential.
tl;dr The historical consensus is that if Germans didn't at least have an idea about the Holocaust when it was going on, it was only because they did not want to know.
It's a fantastic story. Stephan Talty's book on it is quite a read, although the writing isn't the greatest IMO.
On a related note, one concentration camp leader wrote a chilling (and chillingly "normal", to him) book from his perspective. It shows that even what we'd consider the most evil person may think they're doing a good thing, and even has what they consider moral standards. It's a bit hard to explain, but you'll see when reading it; he puts great emphasis on not being as "animalistic" as his peers, despite being responsible for mass murder.
If history is any indication this indeed the sequence of events.
But our conversation will be relegated to the end of the thread because the people who voted for Trump have neither the empathy or the historical understanding of the nuances of your statement.
Must read book - Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz
I don't know how common it is — that would require a lot of tallying-up of numbers — but three obvious examples come to mind.
One, of course, is Germany in the 1930s. Here you had a struggling nation, with many economic problems, that also had a political system that allowed for a minority party (the National Socialists) to exert undue influence within their parliamentary system (the Reichstag). Through a number of extenuated circumstances, it was seen as expedient to appoint Hitler chancellor, and from there things went down hill — electioneering, the Reichstag fire, the steady accumulation of power at the top, and the steady imprisonment, murder, or other stifling of enemies, etc. It took about a month, in the end, to turn the liberal democracy of Weimar Germany into a fascist dictatorship. There is a wonderful little book about this (whose title I always thought sounded like a how-to book), called _Hitler's 30 Days to Power_. We might call this model something like, "circumstances get bad, and radical parties take over." It happens in non-democracies as well.
The other, also somewhat obvious, is the deposition of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh of Iran in 1953, and the replacement with a military/monarchy dictatorship. Democratically-elected Mosaddegh tried to nationalize Iran's oil supplies, western intelligence agencies (MI6 and CIA) decided this was bad, and organized a coup d'État in which he was deposed. Through a complicated series of events, the royal Shah was returned to the throne, and he ruled Iran completely undemocratically until the 1979 revolution. We might call this model something like, "outside forces are unhappy with a democratic outcome, and decide that a dictatorial solution would work better for them." This was not uncommon throughout the Cold War, but occurred earlier as well.
Lastly, we also have the model of a democracy that gets taken over by a dictatorial power and loses all autonomy. Poor Poland fits this model multiple times through history.
Yea one of the crewmen wrote a book about it, in English. Great read.
http://www.amazon.com/Steel-Boat-Iron-Hearts-Crewmans/dp/1932714316
I took a class on the Third Reich last year and can recommend some good books, if you're interested. This one is a good place to start.
Privately, Hitler spoke out against Christianity, though not because he disagreed with theism on principle. He believed Christianity was essentially preventative to the success of Nazism and intended to eliminate it from Germany after the war. During the rise of the Nazi party, he felt it necessary to praise Christianity to gain widespread support from the lower and lower middle classes, who the Nazis did not appeal to. You can find more about this in Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. The Nazi Conscience is also an interesting read if you're actually invested in this. I studied the Holocaust and Nazism under a very talented faculty at Brandeis University, so if you'd like to discuss them more, feel free to PM me.
All that having been said, I don't think it's important (beyond historical and sociological implications) what the religion of Hitler was. Hitler was a lot of things. He was a man - maybe he perpetrated the Holocaust because he was male? He was an animal lover - maybe he murdered all those people to make room for more dogs, like his beloved puppy Blondi? He blanched at the sight of blood. He spoke poorly of women. He enjoyed eating meat, but was advised not to because it aggravated a bowel condition he had. Hitler was a person. He was not a representative of every group he belonged to - men, animal lovers, pseudo-vegetarians, Austrians, German citizens, etc.
After all, Sophie Scholl, a devout Christian, laid down her life to oppose the Nazi regime. So did Willi Graf. Meanwhile, the Pope said nothing and did nothing to stop the Holocaust. Some people live their 'beliefs', some people abuse them, and some don't seem to believe them at all.
Whoever is arguing with you to try to make a point about atheism being inherently bad due to the behavior of Hitler or whatever has missed the mark in a big way, and has basically taken a big ol' dump on Holocaust and Nazi studies. The question is just way more complex than that, and there are about a billion answers just as complicated.
Lastly - remember: ideally, you're an atheist because you believe that theism is a fundamentally and essentially irrational suite of beliefs. Arguing about whether or not Christians or any religious people for that matter are 'good' or 'bad' is irrelevant, so don't get bogged down in those stupid back-and-forths. Every Christian in the world could be a swell individual, and they would all still be wrong.
The Illuminati were an organisation in Germany in the 18th century. It's not a great book, but see here. It tried to influence society for equality, freedom of speech, secularism, so I guess their goal was reached :-)
Anybody can start a group and call it "Illuminati" so there sure are groups today who do, but what does say?
Seems like it's too long, so I'll split it up in two here:
General accounts:
When Titans Clashed
Russia at War
Thunder in the East
Absolute War
Hitler's War in the East
The Road to Stalingrad
The Road to Berlin
A Writer at War
THE ROLE OF THE SOVIET UNION IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR: A Re-examination
Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought: The Red Army's Military Effectiveness in World War II
If you're interested in memoirs I'd suggest:
Blood on the Shores
Over the Abyss
Sniper on the Eastern Front
GUNS AGAINST THE REICH: Memoirs of an Artillery Officer on the Eastern Front
PANZER DESTROYER: Memoirs of a Red Army Tank Commander
Through the Maelstrom: A Red Army Soldier's War on the Eastern Front, 1942-1945
Red Road From Stalingrad: Recollections Of A Soviet Infantryman
Red Star Against the Swastika: The Story of a Soviet Pilot over the Eastern Front
Penalty Strike: The Memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander, 1943-45
BUT NOT FOR THE FUEHRER
Through Hell for Hitler
A Stranger to Myself: The Inhumanity of War : Russia, 1941-1944
Barbarossa:
War Without Garlands: Barbarossa 1941/42
BARBAROSSA DERAILED: THE BATTLE FOR SMOLENSK 10 JULY-10 SEPTEMBER 1941 VOLUME 1: The German Advance, The Encirclement Battle, and the First and Second Soviet Counteroffensives, 10 July-24 August 1941
Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East
Kiev 1941
Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941
THE VIAZ'MA CATASTROPHE, 1941: The Red Army's Disastrous Stand against Operation Typhoon
THE DEFENSE OF MOSCOW 1941: The Northern Flank
What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa
War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941
Germany and the Second World War: Volume IV: The Attack on the Soviet Union
An additional suggestion: a former professor of mine, Dr. Frank Biess, wrote Homecomings: Returning POWs and the Legacies of Defeat in Postwar Germany. While not a statistical study of PTSD, the work discusses the trauma faced by German soldiers after the war's end.
The 1953-5 releases numbered approximately 20,000, of a total of 2.8 million German POWs held by the Soviets - repatriation of the ~11 million axis POWs held by the allies began at the end of the war, and took some time - many tens of millions of refugees and 'displaced' peoples through Europe greatly complicated the matter.
Another thing to note about this last wave of releases is that they consisted of military/civil personnel regarded by the Soviets as war-criminals and as such served extended sentences.
The topic is highly-charged, by the unknown fate of millions of soldiers listed MIA (some believe they vanished in Gulags, others think the Nazis intentionally downplayed casualty figures - the truth is uncertain), the culpability of the Sixth Army in a string of horrific atrocities during it's campaigns, and the complicated political situation that emerged in divided Germany during the post-war period.
English sources on this topic are thin on the ground, I highly recommend:
http://www.amazon.com/Homecomings-Returning-Legacies-Postwar-Germany/dp/0691143145
Here's a sample chapter dealing with wartime reactions to the prisoners taken at Stalingrad.
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8209.html
Well for starters, Germans used to kill their own that tried to desert (check out Red Road from Stalingrad which has some accounts for that). Russians did the same, even in situations where supplies were limited (they would literally tell you to follow the guy in front of you, and when he died, to pick up his gun and fight. If you did not, and tried to leave, you were shot and killed. This was a carried over practice of Roman ages and even earlier). There were also reports of killing wounded who were beyond help, "wouldn't make it", or jeopardized missions (very similar to the game mechanic).
I looked around for a little bit trying to dig up articles, but I couldn't find particular ones that I have seen on the History Channel. My father is a huge war buff and I spent most of my childhood propped up on the couch with him watching war films and documentaries. I do recall there being several missions where people were sacrificed by their own unit/military to protect information from getting into enemy hands. I suppose in that essence, that would be like preventing the enemy from getting a medal.
I'll see if I can't find some of those documentaries from the history channel, and I'll shoot my father a phone call and see if he recalls a few in particular.
I have to say, I don't use kindle so I have no idea if these are available there, but maybe I can give you a starting point.
If you want a fiction book, I really have enjoyed the Nazi Occult by Kennet Hite. It is kinda interesting to read to find some story hooks if you want to write some stories or wanna run a tabletop rpg campaign.
If you are looking for a complete non-fiction book on Nazi Occult though, things get really hard. There isn't really a book that I can easily recommend just because different aspects of this was researched by different people but you might find bits and pieces from:
Heinrich Himmler: A Life by Peter Longerich - Biography of Himmler is crucial if you are curious about late Nazi occult ideologies and what they did.
The Occult Roots of Nazism by Nicholas Goodrick-Clark - I haven't read most of this one yet, sadly, but from what I have seen, it's really good.
Black Sun by Nicholas Goodrick-Clark - If i am remembering correctly, this book also takes a look at neo-nazism.
Nicholas Goodrick-Clark is a good source, really.
Except these for, if you want to read more on Nazi Occult, Wikipedia is really the best place to find academic papers and all that kind of stuff. For example:
Bibliography of Occultism in Nazism page of Wikipedia.
He has an autobiography (memoir?). It is a really interesting read. Many times during the book I would entirely forget that I was reading the writing of THE GUY In charge of Auschwitz until something terrible would bring my perspective back. I recommend it to anyone interested in holocaust history/literature.
http://www.amazon.com/Commandant-Auschwitz-Autobiography-Rudolf-Hoess/dp/1842120247
It's detailed in Chapter 9 of the book 'Knight's Cross, A life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel'. Pretty good read, details a lot of the tactics used in all of his major battles. I just read a line while looking for it saying how they used a ton of tracers for visual effect as well.
Joseph Dietzgen did, according to David McLellan (and not "Marx and Engels", as Lenin claimed).
According to Tom Bottomore et al, Georgi Plekhanov coined the term in 1891. Marx apparently never used the term (he died in 1883). Don't know about Engels.
I have a few. These are all first hand accounts.
Iron Coffins by Herbert A. Werner
This started my fascination with U-Boats.
To Fly and to Fight by Col. Bud Anderson
A Mustang triple ace
Steel Boats Iron Hearts by Hans Goebler
The story of the U-Boat 505.
I'll add more later.
Markus Wolf, Man without a face About east german intelligence
Ion Pacepa, Red Horizons: The Extraordinary Memoirs of a Communist Spy Chief About rumanian intelligence in the communist era.
He also wrote the Kremlin's legacy, but that is more speculative and about the political changes, still a good book.
Pacepa has a trilogy: The Black Book of the Securitate from 1999, and recently (3 weeks ago) published: Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategy for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism, but I haven't read these, if anyone has an opinion on them, please share them here or in pm please!
U/animalfarmpig already mentioned Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, but you just can't stress enough the importance of that book, it discusses the very basics of analysis so well, that this should be the first anyone reads and if I may: this book should be at the very top of the suggested reading list.
Every time I see a discussion about professional executioners, I have to throw in a link to this fascinating book I read a few years back on the famous executioner of Nuremberg....
https://www.amazon.com/Faithful-Executioner-Turbulent-Sixteenth-Century/dp/1250043611
Heinrich Himmler: A Life. Fairly well written, although it's about 100 pages too long, in my view.
I highly recommend the series by Richard J. Evans: The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War. It's not a biography, but it does look closely at individual actors rather than the Nazis/Gestapo as homogenous entity.
Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich by Robert Gerwarth. Definitely read this one. Himmler and Heydrich couldn't have been more different. Very interesting to compare these two.
Not what you're asking for, but I will still recommend it just because it's so remarkable: The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe. If you don't know, Rabe was a Nazi businessman and diplomat, mostly representing Nazi business interests in Japanese-occupied China. What he is known for, however, is a humanitarian after sheltering hundreds (if not thousands) of Chinese women from rape and abuse. This is a selective translation of his diary, so it's not exactly an unbiased account, but for that reason actually, I think it is worth the read.
Did you note the interview with Traudl Junge at the end of Downfall where she mentions Sophie Scholl?
Quite a contrast between their responses to the Nazis.
Consider Sophie Scholl and the White Rose as a companion book to Sophie Scholl - The Final Days.
Books seen from the german perspective
Books seen from the russian perspective
Much more good books to find, but then its gonna be a very long list, lets first see how you guys like the books above
yeah, hahaha. you know a lot about Marx. No, you don't. you only know what your corporate billionaire overlords want you to believe, overlords of which Peterson is just another tool.
Pick up a real Marx biography and get to actually read about him so you can see they've been feeding you bs all this time.
https://www.amazon.com/Karl-Marx-Biography-David-McLellan/dp/1403997306/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=marx+biography&qid=1551146929&s=gateway&sr=8-2
I Flew For the Fuhrer by Heinz Knocke is a great first hand account from a Nazi pilot. I really enjoyed this very short book and it solely about a fighter pilot in WWII, there is no Nazi nonsense in it.
I did about 5 min of searching and I think this is a good one.
http://www.amazon.com/Knights-Cross-Field-Marshal-Rommel/dp/0060925973/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381276313&sr=1-5&keywords=erwin+rommel
It apparently is well-written and a good introduction if you want to go deeper. Like reading his own North African journals:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Rommel-Papers-ebook/dp/B00E9G9HF0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381276313&sr=1-1&keywords=erwin+rommel
Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz
I have never cried so much in my life.
Excellent WW2 book on Garbo.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007QV00LA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Cold War Russian Spy - Also excellent.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OEXDLPU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I Flew for the Fuhrer is an autobiography of a WWII German fighter pilot. It does well with the details of battle, but it also displays the mentality of a soldier who believed the war propaganda and admired Hitler, making no apologies along the way.
https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Thirty-Days-Power-January/dp/0201328003
interesting read this one
Despite how Hitler presented himself to the public, he was privately scornful of Christianity. I advise you to read biographies of Hitler that examine all the available evidence in context rather than looking to the cherry-picked primary sources of non-historians with agendas. The biographies by Alan Bullock and Joachim Fest are good choices.
This book is pretty good: http://www.amazon.com/Perfectibilists-Century-Bavarian-Order-Illuminati/dp/0977795381
9 Company is a dramatization of a Soviet unit's experience in Afghanistan. Horrible subtitles, but the movie is still worth it.
For books, I'd recommend A Bright Shining Lie, a biography of a particularly brilliant soldier's experience in Vietnam.
No battle scenes, but William Shirer's Berlin Diary gives a day-by-day account of the rise of the Nazis in Germany. It's an unparalleled perspective.
I recommend "Berlin Diary" by William Shirer if you want decent sense of what it was like for an American trying to report on what was actually happening at that time.
https://www.amazon.com/Berlin-Diary-Journal-Correspondent-1934-1941/dp/0801870569/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486562944&sr=8-1&keywords=berlin+diary
is "a first-rate madness" (amazon link) considered a credible book?
written by psychiatrist nassir ghaemi with due diligence on primary historical sources (will edit to add details, but currently on mobile) hitler discussion in the book is a digression from "first-rate" leaders who had neurodiverse leadership styles in times of crisis: resilience, originality and high empathy.
hitler never displayed high empathy... not surprisingly.
> The person Adolf Hitler is not very interesting.
I don't think he was neurotypical. examples from the book include grandiose discussions of destiny with his childhood friend.
> Let me expand: The private thoughts of Adolf Hitler do not hold the key for understanding Nazism and the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler, like any of us, is in his political convictions, in his role of the "Führer", in his programmatics, and in his success, a creation of his time.
agree that he was interacting with a weak political system and a culture ripe for revenge ideology. World War II being the revenge war for World War I.
edit: ghaemi used august kubizek's memoir "the young hitler I knew" for his commentary "beginning with symptoms, hitler had clear manic and depressive episodes throughout his life." kubizek's memoir was written 10 years after hitler's death and "most historians accept the general veracity of kubizek's account." that's what ghaemi wrote about the source.
edit 2: to clarify, "hitler never displayed high empathy"... I meant "us vs them" mentality which was violent even in the beginning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Scholl
the book: Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Jud Newborn and Annette Dumbach
counter case study: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traudl_Junge
This is a decent video talking about the rise of Hitler. I think it's pretty impressive by someone who doesn't have a degree, from what I understand, in history and was pretty much done by himself. I think it might be fun to watch and see what he gets right and wrong. These are his sources:
https://www.amazon.com/Goebbels-Biography-Peter-Longerich/dp/1622315332
https://www.amazon.com/Hitler-Ascent-1889-1939-Volker-Ullrich/dp/038535438X
https://www.amazon.com/Young-Hitler-Knew-Definitive-Monster/dp/1611450586
And Mein Kampf.
This one is my favorite, personally; it should, however, be noted that it was written with cooperation from Rommel's son, and therefore, in hindsight, is likely biased.
My advice below is based on the idea of punishing the PCs which is not the best way to handle this.
I suggest you talk to them about his (and their) behavior and that it makes it hard to run a realistic world when their heroes are basically acting like the bad guys. They are supposed to be the good guys (this assumes you don't allow evil alignments or Chaotic Neutral). Speak to the half orc player on his own and the group in general afterwards.
You, as DM, work hard to present a game and they are just crapping all over it by killing innocent people. If they say they like doing those things and would rather play a game like that then I think you either need to chose if you want to run that type of game (see below) or if another player needs to step in as DM.
>Rather, the issue is that he’s a hulking half orc that picks a fight with everything that moves and has (realistically) gotten his party in more trouble than he’s worth.
As they get up in levels running into a random high level opponent who can put him down is not impossible (see your stable)
>An example: a sleepy roadside tavern turns into a bloodbath when the local patrons don’t bow to his will immediately and provide him with every luxury available. Too far away, no witnesses, no repercussions for this for him.
There are always witnesses. Someone could have seen the fight from outside. "I went to take a piss on the side of the road and I heard an terrible fight in the bar. There were screams and killing. I hid in some bushes. Then this 'alf-orc comes sauntering out chattering about how this will teach them not to mouth off. His friend's followed after telling 'im he should not be so aggressive."
Unless they did a complete search and destroy in every room under every sack of flour in the place for a hidden halfling and then searched 100 yards in every direction then there is certainly a witness.
But let's say they did those things.
People expect the tavern to be open and full of people. Why is everyone dead? Did they bury the bodies? Speak with Dead means that unless they chopped off all the heads and burned them to ash there is definitely a witness.
The local Mayor/Count/Duke/King will not be happy about such an atrocity on his lands. He hires adventurers to handle these rabble to dare murder a tavern full of people.
>Once that gets out, the captain of the guard escorts him and the party to prison. That’s where we left off.
Good time for a group of bounty hunters following up on a roadside massacre to show up.
>What he’s done is definitively worthy of the death penalty... his party not so much. More accomplices than anything.
I read a book called The Faithful Executioner which I heartily recommend for a good idea on how cities in the Renaissance were run and how those who committed crimes were treated. I would also like to suggest Killers of the King which discusses how Charles II hunted down and punished those involved in the execution of his father Charles I.
I think both books can give any DM a great window into the rather advance governance of those times (compared to the modern stereotype of it).
I need to read them again but I feel like the half-orc would be tortured for a confession. If he confesses then he is summarily hung and quickly buried. If he fails to confess then a trial is held, he is found guilty, he is chained to a sled and dragged through town where folk will throw rotten food and excrement at him. Then he will be hung till dead and his body left to decompose as a warning.
Other PCs who can be shown to have committed killings will receive the same treatment. Otherwise they will be stripped of all possession and whipped out of town. i.e. they will be tied to a yoke and have their legs tied (so they can't run) then the executioner will follow them whipping them as they leave town.
They may be able to negotiate a better deal but I would think town authorities would be glad to send them out into the wild wearing only their underpants and holding a tiny stick. Maybe spell casters would also lose a hand.
mie beletristica nu prea imi place asa ca merg cu ceva autobiografic scris chiar de soldati de pe vremea aia ex 1 2 3 4